Radioactive elements from 2011 Fukushima meltdown 'detected off the coast of the US'

Surfers gather a water sample at Pleasure Point in Santa Cruz, California Robin Brune

Radioactive elements that were leaked into the Pacific Ocean following the meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011 have been recorded for the first time off the coast of California.

Volunteer researchers have been monitoring the water off the West Coast in a bid to track the progress of a plume of radioactive water that has been making the 100 mile (150km) journey.

Chemical oceanographer Ken Buesseler and his team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have been waiting for the arrival of elements from the Fukushima disaster since a paper warned of their arrival in 2013.

Now, Buesseler says samples from the ocean off northern California have been taken that contain cesium-134 – a contaminant that can only have come from the March 2011 meltdown.

In a statement, the WHOI said the amounts of the radioactive cesium isotope detected were “far below where one might expect any measureable risk to human health or marine life”.

“The levels are only detectable by sophisticated equipment able to discern minute quantities of radioactivity,” said Buesseler. In an interview with Northwest Public Radio (NWPR), he said he wouldn’t be concerned about swimming or eating fish from the affected local waters.

But that doesn’t mean the findings should be “trivialised”, Buesseler said. He warned that people are being left at risk because no US federal agency was willing to monitor the waters for potential fallout from Fukushima, adding that it was an “evolving situation” demanding attention.

“"Crowd-sourced funding continues to be an important way to engage the public and reveal what is going on near the coast. But ocean scientists need to do more work offshore to understand how ocean currents will be transporting cesium on shore,” he said.

The aftermath of the Fukishima disaster

The aftermath of the Fukishima disaster

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Wearing white protective masks and suits, Yuzo Mihara (L) and his wife Yuko pose for photographs on a deserted street in the town of Namie, Fukushima prefecture.

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Weeds grow around a seat in the abandoned town of Namie, outside the the nuclear exclusion zone surrounding the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan.

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A single house remains at an area wiped out by the 11 March 2011 tsunami near Ukedo port in the town of Namie

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View of the destroyed Tomioka station in the town of Tomioka, Fukushima prefecture

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A time capsule is surrounded by weeds at the Tsushima Junior High School in Namie

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Protest slogans criticising Tepco, the company which ran the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, appear with a photo of residents on the window of the home they were forced to evacuate in Namie

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View of a deserted street in the town of Namie, Fukushima prefecture

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A fishing vessel carried by the 11 March 2011 tsunami remains inland near Ukedo port of the town of Namie

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Bags belonging to children remain hanging at the abandoned Namie elementary school in the town of Namie

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A statue of a boy and a girl stands at the entrance of the abandoned Namie elementary school in the town of Namie

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Wearing white protective mask and suit Yuzo Mihara looks at a collasped house in his neighborhood in the town of Namie

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Policemen stand at checkpoint in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, prior to the second anniversary commemoration of the tsunami and earthquake

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Piles of radiation-contaminated waste sit in a field in the abandoned town of Namie, outside the exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan

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An empty gas station is seen in the abandoned town of Namie

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"So we need both citizen scientists to keep up the coastal monitoring network, but also research vessels and comprehensive studies offshore like this one, that are too expensive for the average citizen to support.”

Buesseler will present his results at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry’s (SETAC) conference in Vancouver on 13 November 2014.